Back To Normal

So today was a return to normality where you try to get back into the routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work and attending it for the duration of the day. For me in order to complete this process I need a routine that needs to be followed explicitly, even slightly deviating from it means I’m going to be late. So I guess, sometimes I am late. This routine involves being woken up by the Saved By The Bell theme tune at 06:45 that’s set on my mobile. A hand will squirm out of the duvet and scuttle around until it finds the mobile and presses the snooze button. The snoozing will continue until 07:00 where getting up is imperative in order to stay on time. I fling my body out of bed and make my way to the shower. That’ll take about 10 minutes in which upon my return my mobile alarm would have gone off again making it extra annoying as I start throwing my duvet and pillow all over the place trying to search it. Once that’s turned off I’ll start putting on my office armour (shirt and trousers) and then have some breakfast. I’ll arrive at work around 8:30 and start checking my emails.

Now as it stands this is going to be the routine for the rest of my working life, certainly the best years of them. It’s difficult to swallow when it’s thought of like that, it sounds restrictive without accomplishment. Going to an office for another forty or fifty years preceded by the same thing as I mentioned above almost makes me shake with fear writing it. My only solace is the imagination and ideas that frequently pop into my head. The most recent one being should I find a leprechaun and mug him of his pot of gold I’d leave England now and go somewhere hot. Maybe Oz, maybe Thailand or somewhere in South America, either way I just want to skip winter. I’d love to wake up with the heat of the sun licking my face instead of a mobile ringing out aloud in my ears. The idea of drinking a rum and coke and sitting in some place that has a view of how beautiful earth can be, really appeals to me. Then, when summer returns to England so would I. I’d visit a few people go see a few places and wait for the incessant rain to begin once more.

I guess this keeps me motivated from falling into some sort of mild depression at the thought of going to work in an office for decades upon decades. I’ll always keep an eye out for ‘the exit plan’ but for the time being and like most of us I’ll be doing my own morning ritual to get me to work on time.


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Then it started trickle down more faster as more tears appeared, so much so that they kept rolling onto his lips, allowing him to taste them. Soon his vision started to blur with the tears pouring out. He stands up and screams. He screams loud and hard, with passion. He can feel himself shaking now, he can feel the tears burst out freely. His mouth starts to dry but he doesn’t care, he can’t feel any pain when he is screaming so carries on. His body doesn’t hurt but his mind is damaged. He sucks in breath wipes his eyes quickly and then screams again.

His body tingles all over with little sharp jolts of pain so he lets himself fall on the ground. The cries are almost silent apart from the need to inhale, he can’t understand why he’s crying but he can feel pain. It’s not the little jolts circulating around his body, it’s his head. His head is hurting inside. He feels that his emotional box has been shattered and every emotion is free to go wherever it pleases confusing him. At first he thinks it’s funny what’s just happened. Going to work, getting robbed by a man with a gun, chasing him and then being questioned by the police, that’ll be a nice tale to tell. He smiles, as he imagines telling the tale to Keith today in the pub. Keith wouldn’t believe him at first but when the news came out publicly he’d be the first round his flat banging on the door demanding a more in depth version. How would Tommy react? Probably as always, with an occasional nod but an intense looking gaze letting you know although he’s in between two states of consciousness he is still fully aware of what you’re saying. Yannish almost feels what happened to him is ‘cool’ but as he turns his head round to stare at the sky he feels another wave of emotion ride over his body. What had happened to him was very serious. He was a young man, trying to achieve success in life by studying and paying his way through the present by working. Why should someone who has to work so hard be a victim of armed robbery? That’s what it is, armed robbery. A serious crime had been committed leaving a middle aged woman in a traumatised state and a young man confused. If this criminal is caught he is facing years of imprisonment. The police should consider this an extremely serious case. His life is going to change for a little while because of this. Attention will be focused on him, unwanted attention. No one of his age should have to endure the experience of feeling threatened with the termination of their life.

Yannish is now staring at the sky but not looking at anything, the seriousness of the crime is seeping into his mind causing more confliction with his emotions. It was only a few moments ago he was laughing about the whole things and now he’s starting to understand that this was the sort of thing you would read in the local if not national newspaper and think ‘shit’. Even though this feeling seems more realistic and a better description of the impact of the crime it sits uncomfortable with him and he closes his eyes as another surfaces to take control of his mind. He remembers the feeling of humiliation. He’d already felt it once already when he thought he was killed. No one had the right to kill someone else, let alone for a couple of thousand pounds stashed in a safe. This arrogant human, thinking that he had the right to end life with a gun should be caught and tortured. But why torture? He briefly thought. And then he realised that what he was feeling now was torture, his mind in utter torment and scared. He doesn’t know when he’ll feel truly safe again, he knows that his shell is hard on the exterior and that he’d be able to talk about it to friends and the authorities but inside he can feel the fear. The fear of death, the fear knowing there are people that will end life for the sake of a percentage. Something so bland as money makes them prepared to kill in order to get it. And for what? A new car? A house? And now he’s feeling a mess on the ground rolling around with the slugs and snails trying to work it all out. What about Clarence? How must she be feeling, she urinated herself during the whole ordeal, she must be a wreck. When he last saw her she shivering and silent. But Yannish can only think about settling himself down first before trying to help others.

The Arachnid and I

I was strolling to work the other day I felt something brush my hair. I rummaged around with my hand and felt something scurry across the back of it. I jumped back startled even though it was only a slightly feeling I knew that it was some bug type thing. It then scuttled its way back into my hair causing me to use both hands to try and force it out of my hair. I was careful not to encourage it to venture in any of my ear holes because the last thing I would want is a spider taking refuge in my lug hole, especially after seeing a naff 70s horror movie about such a thing. In the film a killer spider makes a nest in a lady’s ear and eventually thousands of tiny spiders are released when the hairdresser cutting her hair accidentally cuts open a lump on her head. It was horrifically disgusting and because of this I was mindful to cover them up with my thumb. I looked like an idiot but the thought of a spider in my hair made me feel really agitated so I rubbed profusely around my hair until I felt it back on my hand again and then I flicked my hand quickly back up making the little spider launch high into the air and land a few metres away in the grass. I brushed myself down regained my composure and then noticed the frightened look of an old lady walking her dog after witnessing this event.

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“Alright, alright I’m coming just give me a moment.” Said Charles sitting bolt upright on the toilet seat. He pulled the chain so that it looked like he had been to the toilet, stood up and looked at his gaunt hollow eyes that stared back at him in the mirror. Then he stepped outside to see Marla, his wife, stand just outside like a Hyena stalking its prey. He swore, she looked like she was bearing her teeth at him.

“Why, oh why, Charlie, that every time I arrange something for us both to go to, you try everything you can to screw it up. You think by locking yourself in that toilet everything will go away. Well it won’t, and I don’t want to be late any longer, I’ve arranged dinner with my sister for two weeks now and if you think we’re not going to go because you can hide in the toilet you’re wrong.”

“ I was in the toilet to be at one with my thoughts. I wanted to think for myself without you nattering away at me.”

“I don’t give a shit Charlie.” Marla looked at him up and down, noticing that he was wearing his pink shirt, although slightly crinkled, easily acceptable at the Indian restaurant they were visiting. He still didn’t have his shoes on but he looked like he was ready to go.

“Look, I said I was going to come to your crappy meal even though that bum of her boyfriend Peter is going to be there. He fucking stinks and yet I’m willing to put up with his bad breath and body odour to keep you happy. And you won’t. You won’t, even give me five minutes to spend some time with myself.”

“Why, were you masturbating?”

“No! You know I wasn’t. Now I’m coming but I can’t do anything with you standing right in my face spewing out your frustrations, now move.” Charles, decided the conversation had now ended and barged past Marla making her stumble as he stomped past. He went to the wardrobe to find his shoes, remembering he’s got a meeting with Gregor later on tonight. He really didn’t want to meet up with him tonight, he couldn’t stand him but yet he felt obliged, no, felt ashamed as he was commanded by Gregor to meet with him tonight and he knew he’d turn up.

“Fuck!” Shouted Charles flinging his shoes across the room at the realisation of the thought. Even though that was hours away he also still had to endure the forthcoming meal. His dark thoughts had left him now but only to be replaced with trivial mundane duties. He wondered what was more tormenting.

They both got into the car. Marla, silent but her face glowing red in fury. Charles looked at her, admiring her wavy long brown hair, her upright nose that was the focal point of her beautiful face. He loved her but he just couldn’t stand her attitude, he was sure she was having an affair with someone else.

When A Colleague Leaves

It’s a bit annoying when a work colleague you get along with leaves work which is what happened to me. Neil, who has moved to pastures new was quite an entertaining chap with his care free attitude that you used to have me in stitches My manager would spend an hour telling him how things work and what the procedures were and I could see on his face that although his body was there his mind checked out a long time ago. However, this wasn’t to say that he some unintelligent being he just realised or was resisting the fact that procedures are generally extremely boring. Instead what brought him to life was comedy. Especially finding radio shows on the Listen Again function the BBC has. He introduced me to the Mitchell and Webb and also 8 Out Of 10 Cat’s radio shows which I salute him for. He was also a massive fan of Dilbert who I had never heard of until I met him. He thought I was a sheltered boy but when he showed me some Dilbert strips I thought they was rubbish and instead found it more amusing calling him Dilbert for a bit. But this place of work wasn’t really for him and claimed he found something else in Coventry in a publishing house. I reckon he’s just sitting at home waiting for his dole check to come through. Unfortunately for me they aren’t replacing him straight away so I’m having to do some extra work, we don’t even get a temp which I was hoping as the temp conveyor belt brings in some interesting characters. There was one temp who I worked with who resembled Richmond from the IT Crowd. He dressed in black, had long black hair and rarely spoke and when he did he sounded like Will Self, deep, slow and rather convoluted. It was hard to get a conversation out of him but when you did because of the pace he set about divulging his story I was able to work out what he was going to say next and try to beat him to it to move the tale on. He was a really nice guy and again another who either realised or refused to conform to procedures easily and one day went for lunch and never returned.

When I got back from work I decided to write out some more prose as I needed to empty my head of stuff, so here it is.

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The BP garage where Yannish worked was exactly was no different to the ones you pass on the motor way or stop for petrol. His one was actually just on the motorway and getting to it was a bit of a nightmare. As he didn’t drive he couldn’t go the most straightforward route and instead had to take a convoluted way he managed to gauge out for himself after many experimental walks. Getting quite close to the garage was easy as there was a path that ran all along above it but to get down it you had to walk down a steep slope of bushes and hedges, underneath a bridge where a gathering of vagabonds usually congregated drinking beer or injecting themselves with what ever mind altering fluid they could get hold of. On more than one occasion Yannish was heckled by them as he walked past with the occasional half eaten Jaffa Cake or crisp packet with an orange in it would hit the back of his head. Cackles of laughter could be heard from behind him as he would rub his head rather forlornly at where he’d been hit. He wanted to go over there and smack them but them being all outside the society circle he wondered what they would do to him should he swing and miss and find him self tumbling to the floor looking up at them. He thought it best to just ignore them. One day, he walked past them ignoring them when one of them called out his name.

“Yannish.”

Yannish, carried on walking ignoring the sound he thought was his name.

“Yannish, Oi Yannish, come over here.”
The gruffly sounding voice definitely said his name.

“What do you want?” replied Yannish turning round. He could see the three of them sitting but leaning against the slope of the bridge. The one who called out was in the middle. He had a thick beard that terrorised the bottom half of his face with its wild strands. And where the strands ended on the bottom half of his face his long greasy ginger hair would touch and entwine with them from above forming some sort of barrier all around him. His face looked hard with wrinkles visible on his forehead encrusted with the white colour of dryness or cold. His small but focused eyes stared intently at Yannish and relaxed a little when Yannish met his stare and exposed his brown tarnished teeth. Yannish took this as an attempt to smile at him. The other two men were sitting either side of him their bodies slightly turned towards him to almost form a semi circle. The man on the right had long straight but also greasy brown hair. He had glasses with lenses that seemed to be steamed up and was perched at the end of his nose. He too was staring at Yannish but not through the glasses but with his own eyes. He had an inquisitive look about him. The last person on the left was younger looking than the other two men, maybe a couple of years older than Yannish. His head was quite melon shaped but that was mostly down to the skin head hair cut he had. He had sad looking face and was staring at the fire in front of the three.

“We need a favour, come here…please?” spoke the large ginger man.

“How do you know my name?”

“Look, we know Tommy. He sometimes comes to see us for favours and one day we got talking, well yesterday, and he told us about you. We didn’t know it was you at first but as soon as we realised it was the guy we throw food at. Well, in a way I was a bit embarrassed. We won’t throw food at you anymore and in fact as you’re a friend of Tommy’s you must be of good character.”

“I never knew Tommy comes down here. Why don’t you ask him to help you I’ve got to go to work? And Besides why should I do a favour for people that throw stuff at me and scare me shitless every time I walk past them.”

“As I mentioned before we won’t be throwing things at you any longer. It was George who did it anyway but we all apologise.” The ginger man coiled his fingers to point at the younger guy who was still staring at the fire like a boy day dreaming his life through school. Tommy never comes down here, he doesn’t know we reside in these parts. And we would appreciate it if you didn’t tell him as well.

Yannish thinking that they were entrusting him with a secret decided to trust them slightly in return and made a few steps towards their direction. “What do you want?”

“We only want you to buy us beer from your garage and bring it to us.”
“Why can’t you buy it yourselves?”

“Please Yannish come sit with us, I don’t like asking favours without you getting to know who is asking them.”

Yannish made his way over to them.

“I’m Conrad” said the ginger man. “And this is Peter” indicating to the man with the glasses.

“Hello, Yannish. Nice to see you again.” Said Peter.

“And this young man is George.” Said Conrad.

“Umm, yeah hi. So when are you going to get us some beer?” rasped George.

“Quiet! You can’t expect him to do things at the click of your fingers. Not your fingers for sure, have you been trying to scoop things out of the public toilet again?” Retorted Conrad looking disdainfully at George.

Having heard Conrad’s comment Yannish glanced at George’s dirty mud covered hands. He was wearing fingerless gloves with the seams spiralling everywhere. Month old dirt must have been entrenched in those long fingernails. George saw Yannish looking and quickly retracted his hands from view and coiled slightly signalling his embarrassment.

“George, before we set Yannish off he is probably wondering who we are and where we come from. So let’s enlighten him a little. We are Blair’s rejects.”